Famous Tenements Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Tenements poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous tenements poems. These examples illustrate what a famous tenements poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
Hecht, Anthony
...Summoning into Darkness, to those wards
Where is no music, dance, or marriage hymn
That soothes or gladdens. To the tenements of Death.
Not to be born is, past all yearning, best.
And second best is, having seen the light.
To return at once to deep oblivion.
When youth has gone, and the baseless dreams of youth,
What misery does not then jostle man's elbow,
Join him as a companion, share his bread?
Betrayal, envy, calumny and bloodshed
Move in on him, and...Read more of this...
by
Betjeman, John
...y
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.
Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.
And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.
And girls in slacks remembe...Read more of this...
by
Collins, Billy
...r walked in--
then I watched it fly out the open door into the night
and sail away, I could only imagine,
over the dark tenements of the city.
All I had wished to say
was that art was also short,
as a razor can teach with a slash or two,
that it only seems long compared to life,
but that night, I drove home alone
with nothing swinging in the cage of my heart
except the faint hope that I might
catch a glimpse of the thing
in the fan of my headlights,
maybe perched on a ro...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Robert
...school soccer court,
and saw the Hudson River once a day
through sooty clothesline entanglements
and bleaching khaki tenements.
Strolling, I yammered metaphysics with Abramowitz,
a jaundice-yellow ("it's really tan")
and fly-weight pacifist,
so vegetarian,
he wore rope shoes and preferred fallen fruit.
He tried to convert Bioff and Brown,
the Hollywood pimps, to his diet.
Hairy, muscular, suburban,
wearing chocolate double-breasted suits,
they blew th...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...es for itself,
And for the whole. The gentle deities
Showed me the lore of colors and of sounds,
The innumerable tenements of beauty,
The miracle of generative force,
Far-reaching concords of astronomy
Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds;
Better, the linked purpose of the whole,
And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty
In the glad home plain-dealing Nature gave.
The polite found me impolite; the great
Would mortify me, but in vain; for still
I am...Read more of this...
by
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...for itself,
And for the whole. The gentle Mother of all
Showed me the lore of colors and of sounds;
The innumerable tenements of beauty;
The miracle of generative force;
Far-reaching concords of astronomy
Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds;
Mainly, the linked purpose of the whole;
And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty,
The home of homes plain-dealing Nature gave.
The polite found me impolite; the great
Would mortify me, but in vain:
I am a willow of the...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Some we see no more, Tenements of Wonder
Occupy to us though perhaps to them
Simpler are the Days than the Supposition
Leave us to presume
That oblique Belief which we call Conjecture
Grapples with a Theme stubborn as Sublime
Able as the Dust to equip its feature
Adequate as Drums
To enlist the Tomb....Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...hat be for giving
You a chance to make a living.
Yet it would be better far
Could you build with cosy lure
Skyey tenements where are
Rabbit-warrens of the poor;
With a hope bright as a gem
Some day you might live in them.
Could the Queen just say: 'A score
Of rich palaces have I.
Do not make me any more,--
Raise a hostel heaven-high;
House the hundreds who have need,
To their misery give heed.'
Could she make this gesture fine
To the pit where labou...Read more of this...
by
Hardy, Thomas
...feather;
"Maiden meet," held I, "till arise my forefelt
Wonder of women."
Long a visioned hermitage deep desiring,
Tenements uncouth I was fain to house in;
"Let such lodging be for a breath-while," thought I,
"Soon a more seemly.
"Then, high handiwork will I make my life-deed,
Truth and Light outshow; but the ripe time pending,
Intermissive aim at the thing sufficeth."
Thus I ... But lo, me!
Mistress, friend, place, aims to be bettered straightway,...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...What tenements of clover
Are fitting for the bee,
What edifices azure
For butterflies and me --
What residences nimble
Arise and evanesce
Without a rhythmic rumor
Or an assaulting guess....Read more of this...
by
McKay, Claude
...ing by,
The moaning, groaning cars,
And the old milk carts go rumbling by
Under the same dull stars.
Out of the tenements, cold as stone,
Dark figures start for work;
I watch them sadly shuffle on,
'Tis dawn, dawn in New York.
But I would be on the island of the sea,
In the heart of the island of the sea,
Where the cocks are crowing, crowing, crowing,
And the hens are cackling in the rose-apple tree,
Where the old draft-horse is neighing, neighing, neighi...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Tenements poems.